


Before and After

by desfinado



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Hair-pulling, Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-02
Updated: 2011-07-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 23:26:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/218247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desfinado/pseuds/desfinado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A minor obsession with bleach jobs and a lot of frottage.</p><p><i> Mikey can't stop thinking about this confidence that Gerard has. He knows, rationally, that it must have been years in the making, that it can't just be a stupid hair colour and cut, that Mikey can't be such an inattentive brother that he didn't really notice this until now. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Before and After

"What are you staring at?"

Mikey startles, metal scraping across tile as he jolts the chair he's hunched over in, _Blender_ lying open and forgotten on his crossed knee.

Gerard is sitting with his head tipped back, make-up artist hovering over him, her thumb on his right cheek pulling the skin down. Mikey's eyes sting slightly from not blinking. "Zoning, Mikes?"

Mikey huffs an affirmative, rolling his shoulders. He drops his gaze to his magazine.

"Spaaaace case," Frank sings from somewhere behind him.

"Your head is like one of those lights," Mikey explains to Gerard, not looking up. "That, like, attract bugs? So they go _zap_."

Gerard makes an absurd "PFFT" sort of sound and Mikey sees the make-up artist stand up to let him rearrange his face, sighing slightly before bending back over him.

"Bzzzzzz."

Mikey looks up in time to see Frank—wearing only his Black Parade jacket and grey boxer-briefs, one white sock pulled up his shin and the other around his ankle—approaching. His elbows are bent at his side, fingers fluttering. His shoulders are up around his ears, and with the jacket's padding he looks like Frankenstein with tiny white thighs.

The make-up artist is standing up again, now smiling too, making "shoo" hands at Frank as he circles Gerard's chair. Gerard's grin splits wide across his face, bunching the corner of his eyes, one charcoal-grey and the other naked.

He brings a hand up behind the brilliant white of his hair, pulling his lips into a little 'O' before going "Bing!" and opening his palm wide above his head.

Frank shakes from head to toe in response and falls to the floor grinning, one hand twitching at his side.

Gerard looks up, meeting Mikey's eyes. Mikey's not used to the short hair, to seeing so much of his brother's face like that, so bare and on display. When Gerard smiles he sees how it pushes up his cheeks and thins his lips and scrunches his nose; it's like seeing something private.

"Zap?" Gerard asks, looking to the ceiling as the make-up artist crowds him again.

"Zap," Mikey confirms, flipping a page.

\---

They're in the men's bathroom at the venue, flickering fluorescent light overhead and scribbled-on stall doors.

Gerard's standing at the sink peering into the mirror while Mikey dries his hands and Bob and Frank come up on either side of Gerard to wash their hands at the row of sinks. When Mikey's done and the white noise of the hand drier dies out, he hears suppressed laughter, like little staccato exhales.

Mikey looks in the mirror, where Bob and Frank purse their lips against smiles and pull at the hair at their temples, meticulously curling it forwards with their fingertips. His brother stands between them, completely oblivious, doing the exact same, tilting his head slightly to the side and frowning before grabbing another bit of white-blond between his thumb and forefinger.

Gerard pauses.

"Fuck you both."

Bob and Frank curl over the sinks, laughing and stepping away from the counter.

"Fuckin' Liza Minnelli," Bob says, grinning as he pulls the door open and leans back against it.

"Liza never looked this good." Gerard takes a step back, but his eyes are still on the mirror. "'Sides, she wasn't blonde." He turns his head to the left, hollowing his cheeks and making a kissy face in the mirror. He looks up, meeting the reflection of Mikey's eyes.

"Mikey's got more of a Liza cut than I do! He even has the—the bits..." Gerard turns, hands rising to either side of Mikey's face, grabbing the hair at the tops of Mikey's cheeks and rubbing it back and forth between his fingertips. His hands feel warm.

"See?" Gerard turns back to face the others.

"Yeah, no. Mikey's got, like, the undead look going on, totally non-camp," Frank explains from the doorway, wiping his hands dry on his jeans.

"Frank just said you're non-camp." Gerard repeats, raising his eyebrows.

His eyes flit around the perimeter of Mikey's face now, fixing _his_ hair, sweeping pieces one way with his left hand and then pulling a few strands back with his right.

Mikey blinks a few times, dropping his gaze. There's a line of wet across Gerard's shirt from leaning against the counter, bisecting the fabric right above where it's tucked into his black jeans. Mikey can't tell if it's Gerard's belly that pushes out a bit from the top or just the fabric bunching there.

"I'm okay with being non-camp."

"You two are like fucking night and day, you know." Frank walks between them and wraps an arm around each of their shoulders, steering them to face the mirror. They droop a bit on the side Frank's standing, to accommodate his height.

They all take a moment to look at the two of them: Gerard's round face and short fringe of white, his jaw set a bit and chin tilted up slightly, eyes fierce and green. Mikey's hair is black, strands left where Gerard had pulled them inwards. Face long, dark eye shadow. He still surprises himself without his glasses sometimes, like his eyes are too deep in their sockets.

"You always make that face now," Mikey says, eying the long line of his own nose.

"It's the hair." Gerard sticks his jaw out a little more, narrowing his eyes and pulling in the corners of his mouth. "Makes me feel camp, but like ass-kicking-camp. Like indestructible-camp."

"Like superhero-camp?" Frank asks, lifting his hands to muss up the hair at the back of their heads before punching one fist in the air Superman-style and flopping the other wrist down in front of his chest. Mikey snorts.

"Like—" Gerard says immediately, as if he knows they're not going to take him seriously, “—like swooping down into the schoolyard and beating the shit out of jocks calling a kid a fag, but doing it in tight white pants or something. And a Tom Selleck 'stache."

"Being '80s doesn't mean being gay," Mikey points out.

"But, like, embodying all those things that get _called_ gay," Gerard struggles, meeting their eyes in the mirror. Frank is making a triangle over his crotch with his hands like he's holding a belt buckle, thrusting his hips slightly and grinning. Gerard continues, ignoring him, "and then totally kicking ass."

"I've never felt like dying my hair gave me superpowers, but—” Mikey frowns. But he gets it, he gets what Gerard is saying: his brother is _different_ blond.

"Even if it's like a placebo or whatever..." Mikey trails off, smiling crookedly at Gerard in the mirror. Between them Frank is gripping the counter top and air-humping it, Bob's chuckles clearly encouraging him. "You're totally ass-kicking camp."

"Thanks, Mikes." Gerard smiles at him in the mirror, squeezing his eyes shut for a second before opening them, like the way Alicia's cat does when it's happy.

\---

"It's time, guys."

They all rise from the lounge of the bus where they'd crashed out after the show, the swishing sound of everyone's winter jackets as they bustle out the door to the meet-and-greet filling the entrance way.

Mikey's eyes are on his own toes and he bumps heavily into someone before he reaches the door, stepping back in surprise.

"Sorry." He straightens up, standing close and just behind his brother, whose hair seems especially blinding in the dim light of the bus and against the black of the parka rising up to his ears. His head is ducked, hands at his mouth.

"Are you lighting up on the bus?"

Gerard looks at Mikey over his shoulder, pouting and running a stick of chapstick exaggeratedly over his lips before smacking them together.

"Such a queen," Mikey snorts, bumping their shoulders. Gerard's pout squishes up to the side: part diva, part sneering Mafioso. Mikey sighs. "Right, _ass-kicking_ -queen. Freddie-Mercury-Queen."

"Fucking right. _Fight from the inside_!" Gerard sings, hopping down the bus steps and into the night.

After the meet-and-greet, they're out the back door getting a moment of quiet and fresh air.

Gerard smokes a silent cigarette, tipping his head back and blowing skywards, toeing the dirty snow and gravel with his boot. Mikey taps away on his sidekick, comparing notes with Alicia on the new Simpsons movie.

He looks up after a while, sees Gerard with his back against the wall, spine straight, shoulders squared against the brick. His brother's pale face is turned up, eyes fixed on the night sky and a heavy boot braced flat on the wall, one knee bent.

"You stand different," he says in a rush, surprising himself in the quiet that had settled over them, the way that a layer of snow on the ground and stars in the sky seem to mute everything.

Gerard rolls his head to the side after a minute to look over at Mikey. There's something tired and intimate in the way he rests his cheek and forehead against the brick, strands of white hair catching on the rough surface and sticking up. He doesn't say anything, just looks.

Mikey shrugs and drops his gaze back to his sidekick. Alicia tells him she had to finish an extra-large popcorn alone without him there to man up.

"Does it bug you?" Gerard's voice is soft, most likely from screaming his lungs out on stage earlier.

Mikey shrugs again. Bugs? It occupies, more like. It occupies his mind, like he keeps thinking of things in 'Before and After' shots, making comparisons, since Gerard bleached his hair.

He's been texting Alicia about a bizarre quilt that a fan had given them the other day, but his thoughts have been occupied with how Gerard used to smoke before: with his shoulders hunched up and his head hanging low and forward, like the long weight of his hair pulled it down. His chin would be tucked to his chest so his face would be obscured by black, one hand hanging limp from his wrist at his chest, only the small of his back touching the brick. He'd be looking down at the snow but thinking about something else—about being somewhere else.

Tonight, Gerard feels totally present.

"You know I'm still the same person, Mikes."

Mikey rolls his eyes and doesn't look up to meet Gerard's because he's using his Comforting Big Brother tone of voice. "Don't be dramatic."

"But I'm a _queen_."

Gerard's still got his face resting against the brick but he brings his cigarette to his mouth and Mikey finally looks up, smiling, as Gerard purses his lips to hold the cigarette in place while he cups his hand, rotating it in mockery of a royal wave.

"It's okay if you're _not_ the same person, you know." Mikey's voice cracks a bit—it always does when he wants to speak calmly about something he's actually got a lot to say about—and he drops his eyes to flip through his inbox, deleting a few old messages.

He sighs after a moment of silence, like Gerard is forcing him to continue—which, if you know him, he _is_ doing with his silence and his big tell-me-your-feelings eyes.

"It's cool to see you being, like, confident. And stuff."

"Fuck yeah, confidence is sexy." Gerard drawls out of the corner of his mouth, cigarette dangling from the other end, hoisting his belt up with his thumb and forefinger and tipping his head back to look skywards again.

"And it's just fucking weird, okay? You've had long black hair for as long as I can remember. I'm used to my brother being a basement nerd, not a blond, like, twink."

Mikey squeezes his eyes shut as Gerard barks out a laugh, hears the heel of his boot hit the slushy pavement.

"Did you seriously just call me something from _gay porn_?"

"That's not the only place people use it. _God_ ," Mikey huffs out but can't help smiling as he does so.

He feels like explaining: _it's the way you swing your hips_ , or _your eyes look brighter and your face looks like angles and lines_ , or _it's the way you pout your lips without realizing every time you fix your hair_. But he knows it would dig him deeper. Sometimes Mikey likes to dig himself deeper because it makes everyone else laugh, but something about these words feels like they might be awkward.

Mikey doesn't meet Gerard's eyes as he turns to the door, but he props it open with his now-damp canvas shoes and does a little bow, one hand extended to the side.

Gerard laughs under his breath, flicking his cigarette out past Mikey's peripheral vision, and passes by him, skipping and swinging his arms back and forth. Mikey coughs away a startled laugh and follows, letting the heavy door bang shut behind them.

"Yeah, well, I don't take it back," he says.

He thinks, _this is what my brother's confidence looks like_.

\---

"You know, you make the bathroom smell weird when you shower," Mikey says from behind his laptop screen at the table in the kitchenette.

Sunlight slants sideways through the bus windows and Gerard blinks in confusion, pausing in place, wet hair sticking up in the back and catching the light like a halo.

" _Mikey_ ," Frank hisses from the couch, hunched over his Xbox controller and not looking up. "Don't give him a reason to stop showering."

"Whatever, it's really weird. Are you cleaning yourself with strange new chemicals or something?"

Gerard frowns, sitting down opposite him. Their knees bump under the table before Mikey opens his to the sides, sliding his feet out across the floor.

"Industrial strength soap," Frank suggests. "It's brave, trying to find something to tackle the Way Funk."

"I still use my—"

"Your Pert fucking Plus? Yeah, I saw it in there." Frank leans to the right, swearing at the screen.

Gerard shrugs and scratches at his arm, cheeks still pink from the shower. When his hair's wet Mikey notices the beginnings of dark roots, and he imagines the 'Before' Gerard growing back in, slow and gradual. He sort of likes it though; it grounds him, reminds him that this is just a dye job.

"Maybe it's me?" Gerard eventually supplies, planting his elbows on the table to pull his torso across it and lean over Mikey's laptop, bumping their foreheads. Mikey rears back. "Smell me!" Gerard demands, butting Mikey's sternum and shaking little droplets of water onto his keyboard.

"Jesus, okay, okay." Mikey brings his nose close to Gerard's temple, and then Gerard pushes forward again and into Mikey's neck, so he gets a face full of wet hair, scrunching up his nose, and—oh. _That's_ it. "Yeah! Yeah, okay, you can…" He pushes Gerard off by lifting his shoulders up to his ears. "It's totally your hair, dude."

"Really?" Gerard rubs his hand back and forth over the crown of his head and then smushes his palm against his face, inhaling. "I don't—really? What's it smell like?"

"It's chemical... I dunno." Mikey sits back, rubbing the soles of his socked feet back and forth on the floor as he struggles to place it. It's like a wide, expansive smell. It's chemical but in that kind of interesting way that gasoline is, like it fills your lungs slowly, and it has this element to it that's kind of organic, kind of woody.

"It's like the pulp mills on the coast,” Mikey settles on, “or like that smell sometimes from the brewery—"

"Hops?" Gerard's eyebrows rise.

"Yeah, hops. That's seriously weird. Does it always smell like that, even when you wash it?"

"I guess?" Gerard's eyes are crossed, trying to pull a section of hair down to smell it. It's way too short, and Mikey huffs a smile to himself, eyes dropping back to his keyboard.

Later, Mikey takes a nap in Gerard's bunk because he has a huge pile of laundry they just did in his. The pillow smells like his brother's hair, that woody chemical aroma.

\---

They're in the first class cabin on a red-eye flight, lights out and mostly everyone sleeping as they cross the Atlantic. Mikey and Gerard have a two-seater to themselves, playing a half-hearted game of Hang Man on the airline napkin on the arm rest between them.

"No 'R's," Mikey whispers, the dull roar of the pressurized air and the engines even more deafening now that no one is talking in the cabin.

He draws a stick leg and fills in a big black boot with detailed laces, his left arm on the partition. He feels the air displaced over his skin as Gerard laughs softly between them. It's dark but they haven't turned their reading lights on, letting their eyes adjust to the dim.

They don't say anything for a moment. Gerard's gaze is on the napkin but kind of unfocused, and Mikey blinks after watching him for a minute. His brother's got his arms crossed and his hands tucked into his armpits, black jeans stretched tight as he sits with one leg crossed over the other at the ankle, knee jutting out into the aisle.

He looks sort of young in that moment, and reminds Mikey of the way some little kids look, the ones with white-blond hair shorn straight across into bowl cuts, and how the soft whiteness of that colour always seems to change with age, turns more sandy and dull.

"Can I feel your hair?" Mikey whispers, right hand tucked between his thighs, pen still resting in his left. His fingers twitch towards Gerard slightly, and the napkin shifts underneath them. He's not sure why it feels like he's asking for something he's not allowed to do.

"Mmm?" Gerard hums absently, heavy-lidded gaze still on the napkin between them, either lost in thought or half-asleep.

Mikey props his left elbow on the arm rest and shifts over in his chair to line his shoulder up above it, nudging the side of Gerard's head. Gerard lowers it slowly onto his shoulder, eyes slipping shut, Mikey's shoulder blade just below and behind his ear.

Mikey lifts up his right hand and tentatively pinches a bit of blond between his thumb and forefinger. It doesn't feel like much, so Mikey pushes three fingers into his brother's hair, light pressure along his scalp, before curling back to his palm.

Gerard goes "Unh," and lowers his head just a little bit, the tip of his nose a small point against Mikey's upper arm, baring the crown of his head. Mikey smiles to himself and curls and uncurls his fingers a few times in place, thinking about the texture. It’s a bit like straw, like something dry and dead, like short grasses yellowed in the sun.

"Your hair feels so weird. I guess 'cause it got fried, right?" Mikey whispers.

"Mmm, they bleached it three times to get it white enough _and_ used some toner shit. 'Specially 'cause it was black before," Gerard mumbles into Mikey's arm. "Stung like a motherfucker."

Mikey presses the pads of his fingers lightly to Gerard's scalp, expecting the skin to have a different texture after being bleached, but it just feels like skin and hair wax.

"Hurts?"

"No, it's—" Gerard inhales, hands still tucked in his armpits but shifting a bit further away in his seat so he can rest more of his weight on Mikey. "Feels nice." When he exhales, it's humid and warm on Mikey's bicep through his thin t-shirt sleeve.

Mikey rubs little circles like a head massage, pushing his thumb into Gerard's hair to knead more at the crown of his head. Mikey's skin feels scratchy all over from the recycled air. He closes his eyes and drops his head back against the seat, fingers still moving in methodical circles.

After a few minutes of Gerard breathing warm and steady against him, Mikey wonders if he's passing out. Mikey's feeling tired too, but it's hard to ignore the engine noise and the way the air conditioning makes his skin feel cold but like he's still hot inside. His one-handed head massage is starting to cramp his fingers a bit.

"You asleep already, asshole? Thought you were gonna stay up with me," Mikey whispers.

Gerard doesn't respond, so Mikey tightens his hand into a fist and tugs lightly, stiff hair prickling his palm.

" _Ah_ ," Gerard gasps, face pushing forward and open mouth wet against Mikey's arm, lips and teeth through cotton. Mikey can hear the denim-on-denim of Gerard squeezing his legs together. He quickly releases his brother's hair, hand hovering above his head for a second.

"Sorry, sorry."

Mikey opens his eyes and pats the wayward pieces of Gerard's blond hair back down. Gerard's face rolls forward, rubbing his nose against Mikey's t-shirt sleeve, then back to the headrest. His hands are tucked between his thighs now, body hunched forwards slightly. His eyes open for a moment, blearily looking at the back of seat in front of him, then close again.

"'S fine, don't worry about it." Gerard's voice is almost lost under the engine noise, lips barely moving.

"'Kay." Mikey closes his eyes too, hoping it will help him fall asleep. They breathe in silence for a moment, and the sleepy middle-of-the-night sensation makes Mikey feel like he's back in their old room, tossing thoughts out into the dark space between their beds at night.

"Gee?"

"Mmm?"

"That's not, like, a _thing_ for you, is it?"

A soft huff of breath out. "It's nothing."

Mikey rolls his head towards the window and tries to fall asleep.

\---

Overseas, the fans can't shut up about Gerard's hair.

They scream that they love it, that they hate it, that they miss his old hair; some have even copied the cut and colour themselves. Gerard has developed a habit of lifting a hand to the back of his head when he's prowling the stage between songs, pushing thick fingers up through the short hair there to muss it up.

Leaning over fences or bending over meet-and-greet tables, young girls reach tentative hands towards his brother's head and Mikey exchanges smiles with the guys as Gerard nods and says yes, yes they can touch it— _gently_.

Mikey runs his fingers over the denim on his thighs and thinks of the texture, the prickle like straw under his palms, the way Gerard turns into the touch and asks Mikey for head rubs almost daily now.

It's strange for the fans to know what it feels like. Somehow, to Mikey, it's like giving away the secret behind his brother's strength and poise, the secret behind squared shoulders and bright, happy eyes. Before and after.

\---

One night at an over-decorated, Victorian-style hotel, Mikey stays up stupidly late playing games on his phone with Alicia.

He knows how early they need to get up, but there's something about the dark of Frank and Ray's hotel room (they had long since passed out) and the blue light of his screen that makes Mikey feel like he could be awake forever, like time is suspended.

Eventually Alicia goes to bed after kicking his ass three times in a row, and Mikey sits up with a small smile to himself. He uncurls from his spot on the carpet, leaning against the foot of Frank's bed, and uses the light of his phone to search the floor for his wallet.

"Shit," he whispers to himself as he comes up empty-handed, afraid to wake the guys by turning on the light.

Without the keycard, he's not sure how to get into his and Gerard's room next door. But when Mikey takes one last look behind the TV set, the light from his sidekick glints off the knob of a door set in the wall—a door that must connect to his room.

Mikey slides his phone into his pocket and turns the doorknob carefully, trying not to make any noise. Eyes on his feet, Mikey slips through into the room and closes the door behind him as carefully as he can.

The lump of blankets and shock of white hair is a pretty clear indicator of which bed is taken, so Mikey is about to move over to the empty bed when the shifting of Gerard's blankets stills him. Not wanting to wake his brother up, Mikey pauses in place to wait until Gerard settles back into sleep.

But Gerard doesn't stop shifting, one leg sliding down so a black-socked foot pokes out from the bottom of the duvet before sliding back up under it again. Mikey frowns and then the blanket is drawn down slightly by the movement of his brother's legs and he sees the soft pale skin of Gerard's arms. He’s face down on the mattress with both hands tangled in the back of his own hair.

Gerard's hands shift around, pushing his hair up against the grain and back down, fingers curling into fists and releasing. Mikey is caught up thinking about that texture again, the dry-grass feel of short strands against his palm, the warm hair-product feel of Gerard's scalp under his fingertips.

Gerard makes a noise, just a "Hahh" sound that is nearly lost under the rustle of shifting blankets, but it feels like cold water down Mikey's spine. Mikey gropes behind himself for the doorknob.

Gerard's face turns to the left, eyes squeezed shut but mouth wide open, wet lips dragging down the length of his own pale upper arm, teeth grazing skin as his hands twist even tighter in his own hair. His hips are moving against the mattress and Mikey has to close his eyes.

He slips back against the wall, finally finding the doorknob and letting himself back into Frank and Ray's room as quietly as he can with his eyes still shut tight. Mikey isn't sure if that makes it better or worse. All he can see behind his eyelids is the dark shadow of his brother's mouth sliding wet and desperate against his own arm, tufts of brilliant white between thick, curling fingers.

\---

Mikey's thoughts keep coming back to it the next day. He'd let it go, but he feels tied up in this somehow: the head massages he's been giving Gerard so much lately, the way his brother had snapped his legs together on the plane, hunched over in his seat, when Mikey had accidentally tugged on his hair. Mikey knows it's not about _him_ , it's about the hair. But Gerard doesn't really ask anyone else to play with it except Mikey, doesn't let fans or even the other guys go beyond a quick touch before laughing and slapping their hands away.

He doesn't say anything about it at the bar after the show, but watches the way Gerard laughs so loud and talks so fast and leans back in the booth they're all sitting at, stretching both arms out across the back of the seat. Mikey can't stop thinking about this confidence Gerard has. He knows, rationally, that it must have been years in the making, that it can't just be a stupid hair colour and cut, that Mikey can't be such an inattentive brother that he didn't really notice this until now.

He trails Gerard outside for a smoke. Gerard is quiet right down to the filter of the cigarette, at which point he says softly that he's kind of exhausted and might just crash in the car until everyone's ready to leave. Mikey follows, says he wouldn't mind a breather either. The limo driver is leaning against the hood, smoking and reading the paper, and lets them in the back.

"Limos are so different like this," Mikey says as he ducks through the door, pulling it closed behind them and settling down a few feet from Gerard on the black leather bench seat. "When the lights are out and the TV's not on, it's kind of like a well-furnished coffin."

"Mmmm, it's _made_ for sleep then." Gerard already has his eyes closed, stupid contented smile on his face as he swings his heavy scuffed boots up onto the leather and settles on his side, folding his hands under his head.

"If you're a vampire," Mikey points out, stretching his legs out ahead of him and slouching down a bit on the seat, crossing his ankles.

"Perfect."

After a few moments of quiet, Gerard opens one eye and shuffles down the seat to put his head on Mikey's right thigh, tucking the tips of his fingers under Mikey's legs. He lets out an expansive breath, like it's the first time all day he's had a chance to relax.

Mikey smiles at his brother’s head, pats it, and Gerard pushes his head back against Mikey's hand immediately. Without thinking, Mikey slips his fingertips into the rough strands and massages slightly.

When Gerard's bottom lip drops away, his mouth open and breath hot across Mikey's thigh, he's reminded of Gerard's mouth and teeth sliding wetly down his own arm the night before.

"You said it wasn't a thing."

"Mmm, what?" Gerard's eyebrows draw together slightly but he doesn't open his eyes, Mikey's fingers making light circles on his scalp.

"The... the hair thing."

"'S'not," Gerard mumbles.

Mikey's fingers still, and after a few moments Gerard heaves a sigh, lifting his head from Mikey's leg and sitting up. He rolls off the bench seat to the carpeted limo floor, shoving Mikey's legs apart to lean back against the seat between them.

"I just like a fucking head rub. Jesus, Mikes."

Mikey looks down at Gerard, head tipped back on the seat between his knees, the point of his nose visible in the darkness of the car and the white of his hands on his thighs, legs stretched out across the floor in front of him.

Mikey's hands hover over his brother's head for a moment before dropping tentatively into his hair again, making the same small, light circles.

"'Kay." Mikey drops his own head back against the seat, eyes closed, fingers moving methodically with the prickle of hair against his palms.

He feels kind of frustrated about letting Gerard get away with lying. Especially when the head rubs are something the two of them always do, and now Mikey doesn't know what it means to his brother, and what it means that _Mikey_ is always the one to be doing this, and he can't stop thinking in _before and after_.

"Really?" Mikey whispers, like they're not alone in the limo, like if he asks a second time he'll get a different answer. He tugs lightly, to remind them what they're talking about. Gerard doesn't respond. Mikey looks down at him and fists the dry-grass hair in his hands, pulls hard and feels the resistance of his brother's scalp.

It's only when Gerard says " _Don't_ " in a sharp voice that Mikey realizes his own body is tensed, spine curved away from the seat and knees locked in place, nearly clenching Gerard's ears between them. Mikey stops pulling but doesn't let go, forcing his body to relax again.

"Why not?"

He wants Gerard to talk about this, to explain why he kept it from Mikey. Maybe what he wants is an apology, for Gerard to admit that he lied. Mikey can't stop thinking about the way his brother's hands looked tangled up in his own hair last night.

"Fuck." Gerard sounds agitated but he hasn't moved, like Mikey's grip is keeping him in place. All Mikey can see is the back of his head, the bright white between his own long fingers, Gerard's hands still flat on his own thighs. "It hurts, okay? I told you the whole dye job set my scalp on fire."

Mikey releases his grip slightly, feeling bad for a moment, and rubs the flat of his palms back and forth against the two spots where he'd pulled before. Gerard's head dips forward slightly and he lets out a breath, baring the pale line of his neck.

Mikey presses the heel of his left hand to the base of his brother's neck almost without thinking, keeping his head bowed, sweeping his palm up to Gerard's hairline and back down to the collar of his t-shirt.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Mikey asks in a tight voice, the strange sensation of Gerard bending to his touch throwing him off.

Gerard is impossibly silent, and Mikey is starting to feel a little wild, because Gerard won't _admit_ to it and he _lied_ and Mikey knows it but can't get it out of him. Mikey feels like a teenager again, like indignation is bursting through his body and he can't rein it in. Sometimes there's no one who makes Mikey feel more like a teenager than his older brother.

"Why didn't you tell me you _liked this_?" Mikey asks in a stage whisper, spreading his hand wide to bracket the back of Gerard's neck with his thumb and forefinger, fisting bleached hair in his other hand and pulling hard.

Gerard groans loudly, like the sound he makes when he's exhausted or fed up, but it swoops high at the end and cuts off as he swallows thickly. His knees bend slightly off the floor, one foot sliding towards them before straightening back out again.

"Mikes—"

"I don't, I don't..." Mikey feels a little out of control of the situation, while at the same time getting the sense that Gerard is handing it over to him. "I do this all the time, what the _fuck_."

Mikey squeezes Gerard's neck slightly—his skin is so _warm_ —and grips another fistful of hair, using the resistance between his hands to pull. Gerard's shoulders hitch and he quickly pulls his knees into his chest, heavy boots dragging on the floor as he wraps his arms around his legs, forehead pressed into his knees. He doesn't say anything. Mikey rubs his thumb back and forth, like the way you might do to reassure someone, but he can't stop shifting his other hand around Gerard's hair to grip in new places. His brother's breathing is heavy, muffled against his jeans.

When Mikey slides both hands up into Gerard's hair, though, gripping hard and pinning his face against his knees, Gerard gasps, both palms landing flat on either side of him on the floor of the limo with a soft thump.

Mikey is completely and utterly in over his head. He tries to picture him and Gerard ending up in this situation before—with Gerard's long black hair—and he can't, all he can focus on is the way his brother's fingers curl and scrabble uselessly at the limo carpet every time he grabs a new section of short hair and holds just a little bit longer, just a little bit tighter.

"I can't—"

"Shut the fuck up," Mikey says quickly, on an exhale that makes him realize just how heavily he's breathing.

He doesn't want to hear Gerard say _yes_ or _no_ right now, can't deal with either. He's sitting up straight on the leather seat, legs spread wide, tendons in the backs of his hands sticking out in sharp relief as he alternates pulling and rubbing across Gerard's scalp.

Mikey fists both his hands at once in his brother's hair and pulls hard enough to lift Gerard’s head up slightly, then shoves it back roughly into his knees, hears his brother choke out a low noise in response. Gerard's right hand snaps to his lap and his entire body tenses, shoulders hunched forward. Mikey's stomach bottoms out and he can't see, doesn't know for sure, but then—

"—I'm gonna. Don't, just, just don't… I'm gonna—"

"Shut up shut up _shut up_ ," Mikey grits out, and he has to close his eyes against the image of his older brother curling in on himself between Mikey's spread thighs, one hand tensing between the shadow of his legs.

He doesn't know why they’re still whispering, but he knows that if Gerard keeps talking Mikey is going to high-tail it out of the limo.

Mikey shifts his hands to grab another fistful of hair, to pull just a few seconds longer and Gerard goes, "Ah, ah, _ah_." Even as Mikey is muttering at him to shut up again—eyes squeezed shut, not wanting to hear his brother's voice—Gerard's whole body convulses against the seat, shoulders bumping Mikey's knees.

He's fucking pissed. Pissed at Gerard for making noise and for lying all along about the head massages and for making him _react_ like this. Mikey wrenches his brother's head back against the seat hard with a fistful of blond. His eyes fly open by accident, and there is Gerard's fucking _face_ , staring wide and overwhelmed up at him, the point of his nose, his mouth impossibly wide open, jaw locked. Both of Gerard's hands are cupped gingerly over his own crotch, and Mikey can't handle this.

"Fuck, fucking asshole, shit…" Squeezing his eyes shut as hard as he can, like they're going to open on their own again, Mikey grabs Gerard's hair even harder as he presses the heel of his other hand hard against himself, thumb to pinky. In the time it takes for Gerard's breathing to hitch on an almost-whine, Mikey is bursting apart under only five fingers through fucking _denim_ in the backseat of a limousine with a hand twisted so hard in his brother's hair there are a few strands under his fingernails that he might have pulled out.

Mikey lets himself take a few deep breaths—frozen in that position—before letting go, lifting both hands to scrub over his eyes. "Shiiiiiiiit. Shit shit shit _shit_."

"I'm sorry, Mikes. I told you not to—to…" Gerard mumbles in a tiny, strung-out voice from somewhere between his knees. Mikey feels like his spine has turned to liquid but his stomach sours at the sound of the nickname.

"What the _fuck_?" He doesn't take his hands off his face, simultaneously horrified and embarrassed and kind of tacky inside his jeans.

"It's not a big deal, okay? I promise."

"Not a—" Mikey can't even find words anymore, and he sort of feels like he's about to revisit his vodka and red bull.

He opens his eyes just to swing a leg over Gerard and scramble for the limo door, and he feels Gerard's hand fall warm and heavy on his calf but he pulls out of the grip. He shoves at the door handle and falls out onto the pavement, not looking back.

"Later," he says, because he can’t shut a door in his brother’s face without saying something first, and makes a beeline for the bar. Gerard doesn't follow.

\---

The next two days aren't as weird as they could be, considering.

They don't really talk except for passing cans of Coke or asking when sound check is. Mikey only looks at Gerard when he knows he can't see, which is mostly from the rear of the stage. He tries to read the lines of his brother's body to figure out what he's thinking, but Gerard falls so easily into his stage persona that it's the same as ever, even when he slides occasional fingers into the back of his hair to mess it up.

Mikey sees a tech go by at one venue, head hanging low and greasy black hair falling in their face, and feels wistful. He realizes that he misses _before_ -Gerard, how uncomplicated he was even when he was fucked up; how uncomplicated _they_ were. He never really knew the feeling of his brother's stringy black hair under his fingertips, never knew just how hard he could pull it before Gerard would make a noise.

Mikey overhears Frank and Bob backstage, right before he rounds a corner: "I dunno dude, fucking brothers," and "they'll get their heads out of their asses soon enough."

Mikey turns on his heel and goes the other way, but all he can hear is _fucking brothers_. Fucking brothers. He smokes two cigarettes even though he doesn't smoke much anymore and lies when Alicia asks why he sounds so distant on the phone.

\---

On the third day he walks into their dressing room a few hours early, hoping to have a nap, and finds Gerard alone, cross-legged on the cement floor with a sketchpad and pencils. Mikey tries to leave before he's noticed.

"Don't."

Mikey sighs and turns from the door to face his brother. "What's up."

"Stop running away from me," Gerard says in an even tone, eyes on the paper in front of him. He hasn't put his wax stuff in yet and his hair sits kind of white and fuzzy in a straight line across his forehead.

Mikey takes a moment to think and decides to get right to the point. "What the fuck, Gee. Am I not allowed to freak out? You used me to… y'know."

"Jesus, I told you to stop, okay? I'm sorry." Gerard is frowning at the sketchpad, still not looking up as he reaches for an eraser. "If this had happened when we were, like, awkward and twelve, this would be no big deal."

Mikey sighs, leans back against the door, crossing his arms. "Okay, so no more head rubs."

Gerard's eraser tears the paper and he swears violently under his breath. "Yeah, fine, sure."

"'Kay." Mikey feels weird, like they’ve had the conversation they needed to have but it hasn't cleared the air in the room. He doesn't want to stick around, though. "See you for sound check."

\---

By the next afternoon, Gerard is meeting his eyes again and Mikey has made fun of his bizarre facial expressions and things feels exponentially more normal. Mikey thinks of it like the millions of tiny stupid fights they've had: they avoid each other for a few days but they always know they'll get over it, they can't _not_. He tries to think of the whole hair thing now as just something about his brother—something like finding his jerk-off lotion, or having Gerard walk in on him and a girl making out—that they can mutually pretend never happened, because you never want to think of your brother as anything but asexual.

A hotel night puts them in a room together a few nights later and Mikey doesn't even think twice about it, relegates the late-night shifting of blankets and fingers curled in hair to a totally different place and time. He crashes face-down onto a bed the second they arrive and calls Alicia, on the phone with her for a long while. When he finally hangs up he hears the shower running and realizes he hasn't gone to the bathroom since they got back from the venue.

"I'm gonna piss," he announces to Gerard as he pushes the bathroom door open, blinking against the steam.

"Don't flush," Gerard says from somewhere behind the plastic curtain. Water hits the tub erratically as he moves under the spray.

Mikey is just shaking off when Gerard says, "Hey, wanna feel something weird?"

Mikey snorts, zipping up his jeans. "Who says that kind of shit when they're _naked_?”

Gerard laughs loudly and stupidly, and his head emerges from the around the edge of the curtain, hands bunching the plastic and holding it up around his chest. His birthmark is bright pink on his cheek, eyelashes matted together. "Just feel my hair, I swear, it's so fucking weird—it's the complete opposite of how it feels when it's dry."

Mikey's stomach twists, and he thinks about how his hands have been nowhere near Gerard's head for at least a week. The air feels humid and thick in his lungs.

Gerard rolls his eyes and shifts, lifting the curtain slightly higher, feet squeaking on the tub. "Get over yourself, Mikes. Nothing funny, I promise."

Mikey shoves his sleeves up his forearms to keep his hoodie from getting wet, reaching out and gently rubbing a few pieces of hair between his thumb and forefinger. He frowns; it feels smooth, fine and limp between his fingertips, nothing like the rough-straw texture he remembers.

"Like fucking silk, right? I don't even get it!" Gerard sounds excited, like he's been waiting for a chance to share this with someone. It makes Mikey smile.

"Totally, that is so bizarre."

"—and the roots, you can't really see them when it's dry, but look, look..." Gerard drops his head slightly, showing the shorter hair at the back of his neck. "It's growing out so fast!"

With Gerard's hair wet, Mikey can see the black underneath the blond even more prominently. It's stupid, but it makes him think about how he kind of misses his brother's old, gross hair. Mikey reaches out and curls three fingers through the wet strands at the nape of his brother's neck, exposing the dark roots.

Gerard sags almost instinctively under his touch, head hanging low from his shoulders, a few drops of water landing wet on Mikey's socked feet. He can see the first few knobs of Gerard's spine, the twin points of his shoulder blades, heat-pink skin of his thick neck and wide shoulders dotted with beads of water. Mikey cards his fingers back through the hair at the base of Gerard's neck once more, curling the velvet-smooth strands softly into his palm, and freezes when he feels Gerard's forehead bump his sternum.

"Gee..."

Mikey is tall enough that he sees the way Gerard's broad shoulders rise and fall with a heavy breath, the tiny freckles there. After a few seconds frozen like that, Mikey's light touch almost seeming to hold Gerard's head to his chest, Gerard pulls back up, eyes on the wall to the left of Mikey's face.

"Don't flush. I'll be out in a few and we can get food or something."

Mikey's hand falls away, wet up to his forearm, and Gerard turns back to the spray, pulling the curtain closed between them. Mikey nods to himself but doesn't move, staring at the spot where the curtain now hangs. He feels the warm wet points on his body where Gerard's forehead pressed to his chest, where his hair dripped all over Mikey's socks. He opens his wet palm wide, staring down at it and trying to figure out why he felt like he could guide Gerard anywhere just with the press of his hand to his neck or the crown of his head. Why Gerard bent to his touch like that.

"Mikey?" Gerard pokes his head out again, sideways this time, and Mikey surprises himself by reaching his hand up and grabbing a fistful of Gerard's wet hair. "What the fu—"

"Shut up," Mikey says, voice cracking on the second syllable, and pulls slightly to the right. Gerard's hand slaps wet against the shower wall to keep from falling forwards, his mouth dropping open and his eyes wide.

Their eyes meet, Mikey challenging Gerard to say something. But he's totally silent, not fighting the tug of Mikey’s hand. Mikey pulls Gerard towards him slightly, Gerard's foot squeaking on the tub as he turns to face him. Water drips down Mikey's forearm into the bunched-up sleeve of his hoodie. It tracks down Gerard's forehead—he blinks his eyes blearily to clear them—and drops run down over his open mouth, pooling in the sagging hollow of his bottom lip and dripping off his chin to the floor by Mikey's feet.

Mikey wrenches Gerard's head forward so their foreheads bump, noses smashed together. He pauses, feels his brother's warm, erratic breath against his own lips, hears him panting over the sound of the shower. Mikey pulls back a few inches, his hand fisted in Gerard’s hair, eyes on Gerard's wet lips, Gerard's eyes on his own. They trade heavy breaths, neither one closing the short space between them.

“Shit,” Mikey swears under his breath. He can't do it.

He drops his head to Gerard's neck and presses his mouth against the hot skin there, teeth clenched and bared. Gerard’s chest hitches against Mikey's collarbone and Mikey can't even think about this rationally, just pushes mouth-first and lets his body follow him.

He climbs into the tub, pushing until he has his brother backed against the tiled wall, crowding him with this body, water soaking into his clothes from the hot shower to his left. Mikey's hand is crushed between the base of Gerard's skull and the tile, still fisted hard in his hair, and he uses it to wrench Gerard's head to the side and bare his neck.

Mikey's free hand grips Gerard's bicep hard, the soft skin there, and he finds himself opening his mouth wide to slide wetly and without purpose against Gerard's neck in an imitation of what he saw his brother doing to his own arm so many nights ago.

"Unh," Gerard grunts.

His chest and head are impossibly still under Mikey's grip but he's twisting his hips frantically to the side, away from Mikey. Mikey slides his fingers through soft-wet strands and grips a new fistful of hair, harder this time, pressing his body up against Gerard's from chest to knees, trying to keep him still.

Gerard moans desperately and Mikey freezes, panting hard against Gerard's clavicle, when he registers the warm, solid length of his brother's dick against his thigh. _Too much too much too much,_ Mikey feels like he's made a huge fucking mistake, and he steps back like he's been burned, fingers splayed wide in the air on either side of him, huge eyes on Gerard's.

Gerard stares at him from under his lashes, animal-like, like he's going to fucking hurt someone, bleach-white hair a wet mess against the tile. The long pink line of his neck is still bared and his own arms are still flat against the wall like they've been pinned there, his chest rising and falling with his breathing.

"I can't—" Mikey starts and shakes his head.

He’s grabbing behind himself for the plastic curtain when Gerard flips around to face the shower wall, back to Mikey. He's braced on his elbows, forehead pressed against his overlapping fists, gaze down. "You don't have to—" Gerard's voice is barely audible, water streaming down his left side, pink lines criss-crossed down his back from pressing against the shower tiles. "Just... just pull."

Mikey feels like he can't breathe with the warm, wet weight of his clothes and the steam in the air. He tentatively presses his palm between the jut of Gerard's shoulder blades and slowly runs it up the length of his neck into his hair, gripping hard.

Gerard gasps. Mikey can see his brother's eyes squeezed shut, mouth hanging open and drops of water falling from his red, red lips. Mikey takes one step forwards, holding Gerard's head in place—bowed so low it's almost level with his shoulders—and skirts light fingertips over the pink grooves along his back from the wall tiles. He trails a line down to the dimples at the base of Gerard's spine and his thumb fits perfectly in one, bracketing Gerard's left hip with his long fingers and squeezing. Gerard is impossibly still as Mikey looks down. The swell of Gerard’s ass is pink and considerably more pale than the rest of him.

Mikey can't figure out how he can spend more than two decades with this body and feel like this is the first time he's _seen_ it. The white flash of his brother's ass as he turns away and bends over, pulling on a pair of boxers in their bedroom—it doesn't feel like the same body, the same skin, that's in front of him now.

Mikey's thumb sweeps lower to follow the rise of flesh there, digging his fingers in and making Gerard gasp. Gerard's hips—at least a foot away from the wall—hitch forward slightly and Mikey lets go again, overwhelmed. He plants his hands on the wet tile on either side of Gerard's shoulders, closing his eyes. He leans forward just to press his forehead to the space between his brother's shoulder blades, the only point of contact.

"Gee, this is—"

"I know. I know."

They both just breathe like that for a while, Gerard's shoulders rising and falling and Mikey's head rising and falling with it, the insides of his arms brushing the outsides of Gerard's with the sagging wet fabric of his hoodie.

"You can..." Gerard trails off. A few now-wet strands of Mikey’s black hair stick to his skin. "You can do whatever you want," Gerard finally says, his voice a near-whisper.

Mikey swallows hard. He opens his eyes and looks down at his wet jeans and the imprint of his dick against the heavy fabric, at the swell of Gerard's ass and the sparse hair on the backs of his thighs and calves, the frail-looking narrowing of his heels.

Mikey keeps one hand braced on the tile, removing the other to fist Gerard's hair and push down, low enough to hurt, and presses his face into Gerard's spine, lips moving against the warm skin there. "Shut _up_."

Mikey flips open the button on his jeans, shoves one-handed at the wet material enough to push it and his soaked briefs halfway down his thighs. Mikey doesn't look so he can't see what the hard, red curve of it might look like jutting from between his thighs, next to the pale pink swell of his brother's ass.

Mikey presses his palm down lightly on the base of his dick, feels raised veins and sensitive skin under his hand. He doesn't curl his fingers, just runs his palm lightly up the length to smear around the head, and he sighs into Gerard's skin, other hand slipping on the tile in front of them.

Gerard hasn't moved, and Mikey has to stand up a bit to regain his balance but keep his hips clear of Gerard's ass. When he removes his hand briefly from the wall he remembers what Gerard had asked of him, when he first turned to face the wall. Mikey shoves his fingers roughly into the hair at the crown of Gerard’s head and grips hard, leaning his weight on it. Gerard moans and Mikey pants into his skin, wrapping his thumb and forefinger loosely around the base of his own dick.

Mikey feels stretched apart all over, like he’s in two places at once. There are his lips wet against Gerard's spine, his brother's shoulders lifting and falling with measured breaths, water beating down their sides. And then there's Mikey's hand working between his own thighs, twisting up and over and down in a blur, like when he's alone or clutching the phone to his ear, Alicia breathing heavy on the other end.

He feels slightly insane when he tries to picture the two of them in the shower right now—how they must look—and he can't, he has to focus on breathing in and out, clenching and releasing his fist in Gerard's smooth, wet hair.

"Are you—"

"Fuck." Mikey cuts Gerard's question off and bares his teeth, biting down lightly on the wet skin stretched tight across his brother’s vertebrae.

Gerard makes an "Unnh" sound and pulls against Mikey's hand in his hair, resisting. Mikey grips even harder, tighter than he has before, and slides his open mouth up to the wide, freckled expanse of Gerard's shoulder to bite hard into the muscle there.

"Mother _fucker_ ," Gerard chokes. His hips hitch back so quickly that Mikey doesn't realize it until the sticky-wet tip of his cock skids across Gerard's lower back, knuckles of his curled fist brushing the top of his brother’s ass.

They both moan, and Mikey snaps his hips forwards just as Gerard grinds backwards, Mikey's fingers trapped between Gerard's back, his dick and his own stomach, rough wet cotton of his hoodie against sensitive skin.

"Don't…" Mikey pleads, but slides his mouth blindly over to Gerard's other shoulder to bite hard. Gerard moans long and low, the noise tinny in the small bathroom.

Gerard presses forward and Mikey loses his balance, letting go of his dick to brace himself on the wall, other hand still locked into Gerard's hair. His eyes fly open to right himself and all he can see is the broad wet expanse of Gerard's shoulders, a ring of red teeth marks on either side, the ridge of his spine and the brilliant white of his hair. Mikey closes his eyes before he can look up or down. Gerard gasps and Mikey can’t see but can imagine his brother’s dick, hot and untouched, sliding up against the cool shower tile. He can feel Gerard's hips rolling forwards, his brother's fists still clenched at the wall above his forehead.

Mikey grunts, no longer touching himself, and shuffles forward, wet socks on the base of the tub, to press up against Gerard's back. He's just tall enough that his cock slides along the dip of Gerard's lower spine, between the dimples there. The feeling of holding Gerard's body in place, of just rubbing himself off all over his brother’s back, makes the bottom drop out of Mikey's stomach and he feels fucking high, like he can't pay attention to anything else no matter how hard he tries to rip his focus away. He's not gonna last long.

"Oh, shit," Gerard mumbles like his mouth is full of cotton, like his tongue isn't working properly, pushing forward into the tile and then back against Mikey, over and over again.

Mikey bites again, higher on Gerard’s shoulder this time, closer to his neck. Maybe to shut him up, maybe to make him louder. Gerard makes a high noise in his throat and his right arm drops from the wall, reaching behind him. Mikey panics but Gerard just grabs a fistful of wet cotton at the side of Mikey's torso and awkwardly pulls him closer, holding him flush up against Gerard's back. Mikey breathes out heavily against Gerard's skin, pushes his face so hard into his brother’s shoulder that he's seeing spots of light behind his eyelids.

Finally, trapped between the press of two bodies and the friction of fabric, Mikey comes, letting out a long noise that he'd be entirely embarrassed about in any other circumstance. His hips circle in place as he rides out nerve endings imploding in a wave up his back, out across his shoulders, down the backs of his thighs and his clenched ass.

Gerard is still moving underneath him, hands on the wall, and he rises up onto his toes, hitching his hips back. Mikey's cock slips through his own come that’s dripping from Gerard's lower back and slides just barely between the taut flesh of Gerard's ass cheeks. They both moan at once—like a simultaneous _holy shit_ —and Gerard's hand drops from the wall to between his legs, his arm pumping fast and his shoulders shaking with the movement before he goes "Ah, ahh," and slumps forward against the wall, hips still rolling gently forwards.

Mikey is suddenly completely unable to stand, staggering to the side and landing heavily on the bottom of the tub. The metal is cold on the exposed skin of Mikey's ass, his legs bent awkwardly in front of him, hands braced behind him to hold himself up. He can't open his eyes, just pants heavily, now directly under the shower spray, water coursing down his face. He feels the shift of Gerard's weight, then the slump and squeak of bare skin on the tub.

Mikey waits as long as he can, a little surprised at his brother's ability to stay quiet, before finally opening his eyes. He has to blink away the water but he looks across to Gerard, sitting at the opposite end of the tub to face him, elbows resting on bent legs, head tipped back against the tile.

Gerard’s adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, mouth hanging open and pieces of white-blond hair sticking up on one side. Mikey doesn't look down the length of his brother's naked torso, or between his open legs, just meets Gerard's eyes.

"Seriously?" Mikey finally asks, blinking furiously against the water, scrubbing a hand over his eyes and pulling his sopping wet hood up over his matted-down hair. "Are we seriously—"

"Don't fucking freak on me," Gerard says quickly, eyelids slipping shut for a moment, breathing still heavy, chest rising and falling visibly. He looks like he just ran a marathon. "This doesn't have to be a big fuckin'... you know."

"How can it _not_ be a big fucking—"

"'Cause it's just _us_ , Mikes. Shit. It's not anybody else, it's not their fucking business." Gerard's eyes are still closed but his tone is hard enough.

Mikey doesn't know what to say. He leans forward slightly, struggling but eventually pulling the wet denim of his jeans back up over his ass and taking a few moments to finally zip and button them up in his lap. When he looks up, Gerard is cross-legged, pushing one hand over his forehead and back through his hair, like he used to do to get it out of his face.

"Your fuckin' phantom hair," Mikey says, cocking one eyebrow, the edge of his mouth lifting up slightly. He pushes the wet sleeves of his hoodie back up his forearms.

Gerard directs a soft smile at his lap, bowing his head and pulling invisible hair down over his face with his fingers. "Can you even believe this shit? I miss it so bad."

They watch as Gerard tugs at a few phantom strands, his shoulders hunched in that old familiar way. It looks more vulnerable when he’s naked, when Mikey can see how it folds his brother's belly.

"Dunno if I can make it as a blond twink," Gerard finally says in a quiet voice, looking up at Mikey from under the screen of invisible hair. "Sometimes I don't really feel like _me_."

Mikey licks his lips, tastes the water there with the salt of his own sweat.

"Nah." Mikey shakes his head and a few drops of water fly loose. He only really comes to understand it as he says it, but it feels like clarity that's been months in the making: "It’s always been you, Gee, you just needed an excuse to try it out.”

They smile stupidly at each other for a few moments before Mikey lurches forward and twists one of Gerard's nipples.

"Fucker!" Gerard swats his hand away, groping blindly at the sagging wet cloth covering Mikey’s chest, and they fall apart laughing under the warm pressure of the shower spray.

END

\---

Constructive feedback is always appreciated! Thanks for reading.

(DVD commentary for this fic [here](http://desfinado.livejournal.com/41326.html#cutid1)!)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Before and After](https://archiveofourown.org/works/395283) by [thriceandonce (sylvaine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylvaine/pseuds/thriceandonce)




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